Learning Forum

[Jana Rittelmann]

My geometry is a hollow tube with an octagonal cross-section (sweepable body). I need a much finer mesh in the corners in order to look at stress distributions at critical points at one end of the tube.

Is there a way to refine the mesh locally at the one end where I need it? So far, I tried locally refining the mesh (with a sphere of influence around the corners of interest), but the finer mesh was used over the whole length of the tube. I assume this is because of the sweep method which creates the same mesh in every cross section along the length. It would be sufficient to have a coarser mesh towards the opposite end of the tube and would significantly reduce computation time. Can anyone help out with this? 

Thanks in advance. 

[Jana Rittelmann]

I just watched this video: Understanding the Importance of 3D Element Shapes and Order — Lesson 2 - ANSYS Innovation Courses 

And therefore I am assuming that I need to change to tetrahedron elements in order to get a locally refined mesh that varies over the length of the sweepable body. If nobody gives a different answer and if that method works for me, I will mark this question as answered.